


Now Or Never

by takemyopenheart



Series: Now Or Never [1]
Category: Open Heart (Visual Novels)
Genre: Angst, Boss/Employee Relationship, Emotional, F/M, Fluff, Forbidden Love, Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:47:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24417601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takemyopenheart/pseuds/takemyopenheart
Summary: What happens now that Ethan’s tasted her lips again? Will he allow himself what he’s been trying to push away and what he’s been missing for most of his life?
Relationships: Ethan Ramsey/Main Character (Open Heart), Ethan Ramsey/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Now Or Never [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1764646
Kudos: 10





	Now Or Never

**Author's Note:**

> My version of events that take place after chapter 8 of Open Heart.

The streetlight above shone down on her like a spotlight. Before him stood a woman who had stuck by him during his worst, someone who had seen him at his most vulnerable state. She was the only one he had ever allowed to see that side of him. Yet, she remained by his side when she didn’t have to. He couldn’t turn away from her. He couldn’t not touch her.

So, he lay his hand on her shoulder, her brown eyes that sparkled under the light gazed at his. They were beautiful, he thought in that instant.

"Luz..." he spoke in a whisper, not daring to turn his eyes away. He couldn’t.

She felt like a magnet pulling him toward her. Even then, he wanted to be closer, to hold her, to caress the face that stared back at him. His hand reached down and cupped her cheek. Her chest heaved with every breath she took the moment his skin touched hers. He would not allow himself to break this moment between them.

"Thank you," he spoke again. He hadn’t meant to say the words out loud. They were his internal thoughts as he held her close. But he had uttered them, and he didn’t regret it. Before, he would have pulled away in fear of what his heart felt every time she was near. Not this time.

"Ethan..." Her eyes reflected his own longing.

How desperately he needed to feel her lips against his again. His lips still tingled from the very first time he felt them connect to his in Miami. The sensation of them is all he thought about from that moment on. Her lips were fire, and he would do anything to not douse the flames.

In a moment, his lips collided against hers. He pulled her close, fearing the moment would slip away. He wanted it to be anything but a figment of his imagination or a fleeting moment. He feared she’d pull away, like all those times he had, but she didn’t. She returned the kiss, fierce and desperate.

It intensified. It soared like a fireworks show. Their lips were locked in a heated dance; he wanted it to be never-ending. They stayed that way for a long time, lost in each other and the intimacy they had longed for.

Until she pulled away.

She met his eyes, a look of confusion on her flushed face.

"Ethan...what does this mean?" she whispered, catching her breath.

"I don’t know."

Such a vague answer, but in that moment he didn’t have one. He had set rules he lived by, and he willed himself for the longest time to not let anything come between that. But how was he supposed to follow those set of rules when she invaded his mind every second of every day? To a point where he had to physically get as far away from her as possible. He fought to push these feelings away, but that proved to be an impossible task.

It created a havoc in his mind. No one had ever in his life, had this much of an effect on him.

But she needed to know she was important to him. His lips met hers, tenderly this time.

"We’ll talk about it later."

They needed to figure out where the hell they were going from this point on. But for now, he just wanted to be lost in her, to forget all his rules.

She nodded in agreement before they shared another longing kiss. It was gentle and then became lustful. It was hard to separate, but it was getting late, so she strolled onwards to leave. The reverie had been broken, but the tingling sensation remained.

He stood there until her car arrived. _What are you so afraid of?_ He asked himself. _Everything_ , he thought.

* * *

Alan paced the living room, taking in the surroundings of his son’s lavish apartment. To say he was proud would be an understatement. Though they didn’t have the tight knit relationship he wished they did, he would always be proud of all he had accomplished. He had done all of it by himself—always the independent man—and it had all paid off. He just wished he could be this successful in his personal life. His son was a closed book when it came to conversations about his love life, but he had an inkling that something—or someone—was having an affect on him. And Ethan had just walked her out.

Several minutes passed and he hadn’t come back. She was the real deal, he thought as he sat back down on the leather sofa.

It was a long moment later when Ethan finally returned. His face and the state of his hair said it all. His cheeks were pink, his slicked-back hair was a mess, and his shirt appeared more wrinkly than when he first stepped out.

"Sorry about that, dad."

"Don’t be. Everything okay?" Alan watched as his son ignored him and stepped into the kitchen.

"...Yeah."

Alan followed behind him, watching as he stood by the oven, his back to him and staring at it, lost in thought. At the sound of his father clearing his throat, he was pulled out of his conflicted thoughts.

"Sit down, dad. It should be done soon. Let’s go sit down."

They walked to the living room, sitting beside each other on the sofa. As much as Ethan tried pushing thoughts of the moment he and Luz had just shared away, he couldn’t. He wanted to splash cold water on his face, but the thought of washing away her kiss, stopped him from doing so.

"I like Luz. She seems like a sweet girl."

The sound of her name called his attention toward his father. 

"Woman, you mean. And she is."

Alan laughed and threw his head back. "I’m an old man. You youngsters are still kids to me. But you’re right."

Ethan then thought her being at his apartment this late would look suspicious to him. He had to change the topic from Luz and move on. "She was, uh, just here to help me with dinner. That’s all." He smiled stiffly.

He looked at his son, pausing before what he was about to say next. "I’m no idiot, Ethan."

His forced smile disappeared in an instant. "What are you getting at, dad?"

"You like her. Tell me I’m lying."

His shoulders stiffened and his jaw clenched at the uncomfortableness he felt having this conversation with his dad. "I don’t want to have this discussion, dad. Please." He ran his hand over his face, willing himself to not kick his dad out. He was tired and did _not_ appreciate him prying into his personal life. They had left off on the conversation about his mother, so he changed the topic.

"About mom...I still don’t understand all that’s happening. I don’t understand why she’s even bothering to come back after I explicitly told you I want nothing to do with her."

"She’s still your mother, Ethan."

He couldn’t help roll his eyes and laugh. "Yeah, yet she still abandoned _her_ son and _her_ husband all those years ago. Or did you forget?" he scowled in anger. He just couldn’t understand why Alan so desperately wanted to mend their relationship. It was unfathomable.

"Don’t you see, son? You’re more like your mother than you realize—"

"I beg your pardon?!" He felt like he had just been slapped in the face. It stung more that it was coming from his father. "I resent that! I am _nothing_ like her!"

"Then why did you run away?"

They stared at each other, both determined in their own way, to say what was on their mind.

"I remember you asking me, after you’d had a few whiskeys one particular night not too long ago, if you’d made a mistake running away from her. _Her_ —at first I was unsure whom you were speaking of, but I think I know now just who you meant..."

He couldn’t look him in the eye. Ethan’s eyes would say it all. He _had_ been speaking of Luz that night, but to be told he was like his mother, that stung badly. And he strongly disagreed. He was nothing like her. His situation was _entirely_ different from hers. She had abandoned a whole family. A family he thought she loved. But he had been wrong. She never loved him.

"Ethan, you run when things get tough. You avoid problems."

He let out a bitter laugh at that analysis. "I wouldn’t be where I am today if that were the case. I wouldn’t be one of the top diagnosticians in the damn country if what your _so-called assessment_ was true. Why are we even comparing these situations? I would never choose to walk away from a family, I don’t run away from anything, I face them dead on."

"That’s not the case when it comes to things you can’t control." Ethan snapped his head toward Alan. "Is it?" Alan continued.

Luz. Naveen. Harper. The list appeared in his mind.

He couldn’t save Naveen, so he quit and disappeared off the face of the earth to drink himself into oblivion. He found himself slipping away toward the end of his relationship with Harper.

And Luz...

He had left her behind without a word.

"So, you’re my therapist now?" he spoke bitterly.

"I’m your father. Your father who loves you more than life itself. I may not speak my mind often, because I observe. I’ve been observing every little move you make in her presence. I don’t want Luz—" he stopped himself, unsure of how to get it through to Ethan to stop hurting both himself and the woman he knew his son deeply cared about.

Ethan furrowed his brows and tilted his head. "You don’t want Luz to what? Say it."

He let out a deep sigh before turning to face him. "I don’t want Luz hurting like I hurt when your mother left."

Ethan breathed a heavy sigh, resting both elbows on his now-bouncing knees. He couldn’t ignore the sudden flashbacks to the time when he was 12-years-old and the frantic worried look on his dad’s face when he couldn’t find a trace of his wife. Even worse, the devastated look in his eyes when they both discovered she’d left on her own free will. She had left him heartbroken.

Like he had broken Luz’s heart.

He couldn’t allow himself to think of the hurt he must have been putting her through, it would tear him apart.

"I think it’s a little too late for that." He suddenly stood up, clearing his throat, when he felt his eyes well up. He walked into the kitchen, looking around to find something to busy himself with. The chicken should almost be done.

The chicken...

He promised Luz he’d bring her some tomorrow.

He laughed at himself as the tears threatened to spill. He had broken her. The destroyed look in her eyes the night they were reunited after two months, was the same look in his dad’s eyes the day _she_ walked out of their lives.

"It’s not too late to give this a chance. She’s stood by you, hasn’t she? She’s shown you the unconditional love you’re so afraid of."

Ethan hated crying in front of people. He hated crying, period. He rubbed his eyes, desperately trying to avoid a breakdown in front of his father.

_Unconditional love._

Those words carried a heavy burden. He never believed in such a thing. Not since the person he once cared about walked away from her family. He had shut himself off for so long. He never had successful relationships of any kind, both platonic or romantic.

He never fully revealed himself to anyone until Luz walked into his life. She had opened him up in ways he never thought possible. He had slowly let her into his life and grew to care about the real _him_. The person he kept locked up for so long to focus on his work. He was a broken man, not an easy man to love, he realized. But that didn’t matter to her. It never mattered, she loved him for who he was.

And he loved her.

He felt a hand on his shoulder as his dad came closer. Alan took his tearful son in his arms and held him close. This wasn’t a 37-year-old man crying, this was the 12-year-old boy crying for the innocence and love he lost. Ethan mourned what had been taken from him all those years ago. But there was still love out there.

And her name was Luz.


End file.
